Man Living Under Leaky Roof To Keep Paying Daughter's Tuition

EL PASO - Parents make sacrifices to pay for their child's education, but for one man that means living in bad conditions. The roof in his apartment is caving in, and his landlord can't seem to get it fixed. Now he's sticking it out to pay for his daughters tuition.

"I'm scared that the roof may come down," Fernando Casas said.

For nearly four months, Mr. Casas has been sleeping under a roof that drips nasty yellow water and looks like it's about to cave in.

"I really hope they do something, because if I have to move somewhere else, it has to be something less expensive than here or I don't know," Casas said.

Several people own the condo complex that Mr. Casas lives in, and that's where the problem starts. To fix the leaky roof, everyone needs to agree on the project.

"I'm not responsible if they have to talk to the others so they can come to an agreement of fixing the whole roof. In the meantime, I'm suffering with this," he said.

Mr. Casas' landlord, one of the owners, lives in Mexico City. We spoke with her accountant who lives in El Paso. He claims, she's trying to fix the roof, but Mario Martinez, the condo association president, is holding up the project by not signing off on it. We called Martinez, but he refused to talk with us or answer any of our questions. In fact, he hung up on us. So until he decides to answer someone, Mr. Casas is stuck sleeping with a bucket next to his pillow. Mr. Casas says at one point an employee of his landlord told him he might as well move out, but it's between finding a new place or paying for his daughter's tuition, so he's staying put.

"I have a daughter in college. I have to pay big tuitions and I have other expenses. Believe me, to go somewhere else where I have to pay $100 or $150 more than here is very, very hard for me," Casas said.

In the meantime, we called the El Paso Apartment Association to see what Mr. Casas, or people in similar situations, can do. They said, unfortunately nothing. We're told a landlord can't be forced to make repairs, especially if they're waiting on permission from an association.